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1 The structural analysis of myth
The nature of myths
Myths are tales which provide an account of how the world came to be as it is. The past explains the present: the human condition is a consequence of the acts of mythical ancestors. The prototypical myths are thus myths of creation.
In Scandinavian mythology the world began in the interaction of fire and ice. Niflheim was the world of fog and ice in the North, Muspelheim the world of fire in the South. They were separated by Ginnungagap, the great gap between the worlds. A spark flew from Muspelheim into Niflheim and ice melted into Ginnungagap. From the ice grew the giant Ymir, the father of the giants. From his left armpit a giant and a giantess sprouted and his knees copulated and begot a son. Ymir was fed by the cow Audumla, who appeared out of nowhere. While she fed Ymir she licked a man out of the ice. His name was Buri. Buriâs son, Bor, married the giantess Bestla. Odin, Vili and Ve, the sons of Bor, slew Ymir and created the world out of his body. They shaped the mountains from his bones, the earth from his flesh, water from his blood, heaven from his skull and trees from his hair (Gylfaginning 4â8). Thus the world originated in murder.
This Scandinavian myth is a variant of a common Indo-European theme: the creation of the world from the body of a primordial giant. In a similar way the world was created out of the body of the first man, Purusa, in Indian mythology (cf. OâFlaherty 1976: 270). In the Scandinavian myth children are born as a result of the giantâs autofertilization. In Indian mythology there is more conventional incest: BrahmÄ copulated with his daughter, the earth, and begot the Aáčgirases, a group of Indian gods (cf. OâFlaherty 1976: 26).
An interesting variant on these themes can be found in the Theogony of Hesiod in Greek mythology. At first only Chaos existed. Then Gaia and some other divinities came into being. Gaia brought forth Ouranos, the sky, as her son and her equal. She had intercourse with him and they became the parents of many beings. Most important among them were the Titans, the giants who preceded the gods as rulers of the world. Kronos, the mightiest of the Titans, emasculated and killed his father, who prophesied a similar destiny for him. Although Kronos devoured all his children to escape his fate, he was finally outwitted by his wife, who gave him a stone concealed in a napkin instead of her last son, Zeus. She hid Zeus on the island of Crete. When Zeus was full-grown he made his father vomit up all the children he had devoured, then he defeated the Titans and usurped their power over the world (cf. Theogony 116â720). Thus in Greek mythology the beginning of the world was also marked by murder and incest.
Although the myths of creation sometimes deal with the interactions between elements like fire and ice, their main emphasis is on the actions of persons: gods, giants, men, mythical animals, etc.
The distinction between different categories of beings is often vague. Váčtra, the snake in Indian mythology, who consumed all the water of the world, was a fearsome monster, but at the same time a son of the creator god TvaáčŁáčáč and a half-brother of the god Indra, who killed him off (cf. OâFlaherty 1980, 102). The huge wolf Fenrir, in Scandinavian mythology, was a son of the god Loki. He could only be bound by magical rope, because the god Tyr, the guardian of the thing (the sacred assembly of the people), was prepared to commit perjury (Gylfaginning 34). The gods were often thought to be descended from the giants, but from a moral point of view they did not behave better than the giants and monsters they defeated. Zeus regularly seduced virgins and left them to their fate, Odin often betrayed his most faithful followers, as in the myth of Starkather (Gesta Danorum Book Six, Gautreks Saga). Although the gods are usually thought to be wise and brave they are often foolish and cowardly in mythology. Mythology does not postulate an immense gap between gods and men. On the contrary, gods are very human, sharing the same fears and passions and often even subject to the processes of birth and death. In Scandinavian mythology most of the gods will die at the end of time, when the world will be consumed in a great fire. In Indian mythology the gods are destroyed and reborn as each world period (kalpa) is succeeded by a new period. This humanization of the gods may contrast strongly with the treatment of the same gods in other religious domains, but mythology is relatively autonomous, and the view of the gods is not necessarily the same in all domains of religion.
Myths are tales. They should not be confounded with ideologies, philosophies or theologies. They do not try to give a systematic account of the world, but they explain its origin and express its structure in the form of a tale. While elaborate ideological, philosophical and theological systems were developed especially in the great civilizations of the past, myths flourished in all cultures, literate or non-literate.
Time and history
Mythical time is âlong agoâ, âeven before my grandfather livedâ. In those remote days all kinds of wonderful things were possible. Men could turn themselves into animals, and animals behaved like men. Gods married human beings, and men and women were transformed into gods.
In most cultures people also tell more evidently factual stories about the not so distant past. Generally, people who tell myths do not distinguish sharply between myth and history, although the modern contrast between history as a true account of the past and myth as a fictitious account was developed by the Greeks, to whom indeed we owe the very terms of the distinction. Moreover the historical value of myths has been cautiously recognized: both for the elements of direct historical truth they embody, and for the insights they yield into the culture of the men who told them. At the same time the mythical patterns imposed on many historical accounts have become more apparent. Arthur may have been an historical figure, and there can be no question about the historical importance of Charlemagne, yet the epics which deal with these kings are almost completely mythical. Snorri Sturlusonâs Heimskringla (history of the Norse kings) and Saxo Grammaticusâs Gesta Danorum (history of the Danish kings), like Livyâs Ab Urbe Condita (history of Rome), move predominantly mythical accounts of the first kings to increasingly historical records which are, however, strongly biassed by political considerations.
Myths, equally, embody specific social and political interests. The sagas were told by the farmers in Iceland, the legends by the clergy, the epics by the nobility, the fairy-tales by the farming population all over Europe. The sagas tell us about great feuds between farming families, the legends about the fates of Christian martyrs, the epics about great heroes and their kings, and the fairy-tales about elves and gnomes and poor boys and girls who become kings and queens. The clergy will usually bring out religious ideas and values, the tales of the nobility will be concerned with problems of valour and warfare, while the fairy tales may be concerned with food and hidden treasures, but although their tales deal with different problems this does not necessarily mean that they have completely different structures. Often surprising similarities can be found between the tales of different social strata.
Because, for these reasons, myths themselves exist in the context of history, they may alter or disappear, and new myths may come into being, as historical circumstances change. New myths must, however, fit into existing mythical patterns if they are to be significant to the participants. Consequently, the structure of a mythology changes much more slowly than individual myths.
Understanding myths
In oral tradition a tale has a flexibility that is lost once the story is written down. Different versions of the same tale are usually accepted without serious objection. One could even argue that a good story should never be told in the same way twice. The storyteller should make minor variations to prove his qualities as a narrator. No particular version is necessarily the right or original one.
Yet the storyteller is not completely free in his rendering of the story. Consider the fairy-tale of Little Red Riding Hood. A little girl goes into the forest and begins to collect flowers, although her mother has warned her not to do so. It is not important what kind of flowers she collects, and the storyteller may choose any kind of flowers he thinks suitable. He is also free to develop his own description of the girlâs clothes, as long as he takes care that she wears a little red riding hood. The colour of the wolf does not matter, but the storyteller cannot substitute a bear or a giant for the wolf, or a brother or sister for the grandmother. The audience would feel he was telling the story in the wrong way, or that he was telling quite a different story.
The storyteller and his audience know the stories and how they should be told, but they do not ask why this is the case and it is up to the analyst to determine the structural constraints of the tale.
Myths are not isolated units. They are part of complex mythologies. Different myths share many themes and features, that recur in different ways in the tales. Mythology constitutes a relatively autonomous domain of fantasy with its characteristic themes and conventions which the story-teller and his listeners constantly evoke.
Consider the familiar patterns of so many of Grimmâs fairy tales. A father has three sons. He sends them away to perform a particular task. Two sons fail, but the third succeeds and wins the love of a princess. His two brothers betray him and leave him, but he finally triumphs and marries his bride. Another common pattern is that of a girl who has a stepmother and one or two step-sisters. The stepmother favours her own daughters and pesters her step-daughter, but the step-daughter nevertheless becomes rich, or marries a prince, while her own daughters have a much less fortunate lot.
As the participants listen to the stories they can anticipate these patterns. They know the prince will marry his bride and the poor girl her prince. Small children tend to ask if all ends well, because they are not yet familiar with these patterns. A happy ending compensates for the most gruesome details.
The participants can listen to the tales in many different ways. Sometimes they will identify themselves with the hero or the heroine. Sometimes they will just enjoy the plot or a particular joke. Much depends on the situation, the mood of the audience, the qualities of the storyteller, etc. Different people listen in different ways.
The participants enjoy the stories, but they do not search for hidden meanings or messages, because their understanding of the tale is shaped in the process of listening to it. This process is very similar to that of listening to the performance of a piece of music. The audience follows the performance of the music and enjoys its melody, harmony, etc. Although the structure of the music remains the same in different performances people can enjoy the music in different ways depending on the quality of the performance, their own mood, etc. Once the performance stops the process is finished and there is no need for immediate discussion. On the contrary, one often prefers to remain silent for a time in order to keep in touch with the experience of the process of listening itself.
Although we must understand a culture more generally before we can make sense of a body of myths, we cannot turn to the participants for confirmation or falsification of our insights into their tales, because they deal with their tales in a completely different way. The audience that listens to a myth is satisfied with its immediate and intuitive understanding, but the analyst experiences the myths in a different way. Tales of other cultures often strike us as strange and incomprehensible and our stories sound most improbable to members of other cultures. The American anthropologist Laura Bohannan once told a group of elderly African gentlemen the story of Hamlet. They thought it was very strange. How could Hamlet raise his hands against his paternal uncle, who had taken care of his brotherâs widow as a good man should? They were certain she had got it all wrong, and gave her tips on how to turn it into a sensible tale (Bohannan 1967: 43â54).
The structural anthropologist is not primarily interested in what people say about their myths, although this can be a source of valuable information. He is trying to discover what constitutes their understanding of the myths: the relation between the structure of the myths and the structures of ethnographic reality. But if he cannot confirm or falsify his analyses by confronting his results with the ideas of the participants, he must find other ways to convince his colleagues of the correctness of his interpretations. He is in need of a theory of myth and a method of analysis.
Myth and the cultural order
It is a popular but risky procedure for the student of myth to postulate unconscious structures in the minds of the myth makers. By uncovering these structures he produces the key to the myths. The risk, obviously, is that these unconscious structures will be nothing but projections of his own preoccupations, reflecting his own understanding of the myth but not necessarily corresponding with the way in which the participants experience them. It is preferable to begin with what the participants do know rather than with what, by definition, they do not know.
The participants understand their myths because of their ability to relate the myths to their own experience of life, which is in turn determined by their cultural background. This does not mean that myths tamely incorporate conventional ideas. On the contrary, myths provide a conceptual ground in which experiments may be made with alternative presuppositions. They may even account for the very different mores of other peoples. Mythology also discusses transgressions of the most fundamental cultural rules, lingering over incestuous relations and the murders of kinsmen and affines. In the cycle of Theban myths of the descendants of Kadmos or the Mycenean cycle of myths about the descendants of Pelops, fathers kill their sons or sacrifice their daughters, brothers kill each other, sons kill their fathers and marry their mothers. Obviously these myths do not reflect everyday life as it is experienced by the people who tell the myths or listen to them. Yet they do deal with problems raised by the conventions.
People appreciate that an ordered social life requires the prohibition of incest and a reasonable tolerance of brothers, parents and children. At the same time it is possible to feel the attraction of incest, parricide or fratricide. Incest could, for example, solve the problem of providing brideprice to strangers. Fratricide neatly disposes of the problems raised by inheritance and succession. Moreover the complicated emotions generated by family life do not all support the conventional arrangements. Everyday life may not permit experiment with radical alternatives. Mythology does. Yet mythology also underlines the disastrous consequences of such deviations, at least as a normal thing.
Mythical transgressions may, however, sometimes prove to be fruitful. Chaos is not only a very dangerous condition, but it is also potentially a very creative one. Many myths explain how the world arose out of chaos, order out of disorder, and culture out of nature. This is often expressed in a paradoxical way in the structure of the myth itself: a cultural rule or norm is instituted because of the very act it prohibits. This is particularly clear in the creation myths in Genesis. The incestuous relation between Adam and Eve, who shared the same flesh, leads to the regulation of the relations between husband and wife. The murder of Abel by his brother Cain leads to the institution of blood-revenge whereby a man should be avenged by his brother. The shamelessness of Ham towards his father Noah leads to the institution of social hierarchy (cf. Oosten and Moyer 1982).
Myths can give a foundation to the existing order of the world in different ways: in a positive way, by describing how this order was instituted by gods, culture heroes, ancestors, etc., in a negative way, by describing the frightful consequences of alternative orders and behaviour. Many creation myths begin with incest or murder because they have to explain how order arose from chaos. Although they cannot solve that problem satisfactorily from a logical point of view, they can at least express it clearly in their structures.
In this book I treat myths as cognitive structures, dealing with cognitive problems relating to the order of the world. Myths have psychological functions, political functions, social functions, etc., but these are outside the scope of this book. The selection of this approach is based on my interest in the domains of religion and cognitive systems, and it also derives from my interest in the methods of structural analysis.
Problems of method
In structural analysis we can study myths in different ways, but two complementary approaches are particularly relevant:
a) The study of the significance of myths
Myths may be analysed in order to discover their significance for the participants. In that case the analyst attempts to determine the relation between the structures of the myths and the structures of ethnographic reality as it is perceived by the participants.
b) The study of the form of the myths
The structure of complexes of myths may be examined in order to discover the organizing principles that determine their form. Here the analyst tries to determine the relations between different myths, that are not necessarily told within the same culture.
Both approaches have been applied successfully by LĂ©vi-Strauss, the founding father of the structural analysis of myth in anthropology. His most famous analysis of one particular myth is his study of the myth of Asdiwal, a myth that was collected in several versions among the Indians of the American North-West coast. LĂ©vi-Strauss demonstrated that this myth can be analysed on different levels (yielding a geographical scheme, a cosmological scheme, a sociological scheme, etc.) and he relates these levels to corresponding levels in the cultural order of society to determine their significance. Some schemes reflect ethnographic reality, other schemes invert it. Ultimately LĂ©vi-Strauss demonstrates how the myth handles structural problems in Tsimshian society. Differences between the versions are explained by differences in the ethnographic conditions of the groups which told those versions (LĂ©vi-Strauss 1973).
The second approach is predominant in the Mythologiques. LĂ©vi-Strauss demonstrates that the mythologies of the American Indians constitute a complex pa...
